Things got intense for the Deadliest Catch crews as Typhoon Halong hit Japan and western Alaska on the Friday, May 15, episode. Johnathan Hillstrand (Time Bandit), Jake Anderson (Cornelia Marie), and Rick Shelford (Aleutian Lady) battled massive 25 to 30-foot waves as the cyclone hit the Bering Sea.
“A tropical depression when the fleet departed Dutch Harbor, Typhoon Halong barrels northeast to the Bering Seas’ 55,000 square-mile fishing grounds, trapping the fleet 200 miles from safe harper in pursuit of the $30/pound pure red king crab,” a narrator said at the beginning of the episode.
Below, find out how the three boats weathered the storm.
Time Bandit
On the Time Bandit, Hillstrand was on a race against time to get to the cannery to unload due to limited space. “We have to be there or we’re going to get put back in line and we might lose all our crabs sitting in the harbor,” Hillstrand explained, noting that he and his crew still needed to catch $1.5 million worth of the king crabs amid the storm.
After pulling out one big load and one empty pot, Hillstrand noted, “The pot that had 100 [crabs] in it was right on top of this mound here. Another half mile, it drops back off. I think I’m going to set everything I got on top of that mount. You can put 100 pots in a one-mile square.”
Hillstrand warned his crew that he was putting them in harm’s way, and eventually, he feared for their lives. “It’s too scary,” he said. “My legs are shaking right now. I just can’t hurt nobody. I don’t care about crab anymore. I gotta get this gear off without hurting these guys.”
The group was able to set 20 pots on top of the mound. “If we mess up and grab the wrong one, we’re oging to tangle them all up and it’ll be a mess,” Hillstrand admitted. However, the risk paid off, as the method resulted in the group catching dozens of crab per pot.
Cornelia Marie
Anderson and his crew hit a snag when one throttle got “stuck wide open” and another wasn’t responding. “We’re in the middle of 25-foot seas. If I can’t control the boat, I’m screwed,” Anderson pointed out.
He had to rush to get weight off the boat before losing another throttle. “I just gotta pray to God this is where the crabs are,” he said, as the crew threw more pots into the water, hoping they landed on mud piles instead of rock piles.
Discovery
With the help of Jake Albinio, they were able to fix the throttle, and after hitting a rock pile at first, the crew eventually started catching some crab in mud piles. But this was all happening as massive waves splashed onto the boat and crew.
“There’s a learning curve to this,” Anderson said. “If you don’t get much time, you could kill somebody real quick. I gotta keep going. I will figure it out.”
Aleutian Lady
Shelford explained that his journey north was costing a lot of money and fuel, which meant they needed to “hit and hit good” to make up for it. After catching 44 crab in one pot and 46 in another, Shelford began having concerns about the ride.
“The trailer line parted and I can’t afford to have my bags go under and suck line in the wheel,” he shared. ‘Then we’re disabled. And then we’re calling for help. Now I gotta spin the other way, which means the starborad rail open with guys out there.”
Shelford wasn’t able to “turn quick enough” and lost a buoy line with $14,000 worth of crab. “The waves are too f**king big,” he complained.
After aborting the mission for 14 hours, the crew got back out there. “We can’t waste any more time,” Shelford warned. It ended up being “worth the fight,” as the next pots had 64 crabs and 68 crabs.
Deadliest Catch, Season 22, Fridays, 8/7c, Discovery Channel
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